IMPERIAL TROOPS.

Otago Witness, Issue 918, 3 July 1869, Page 1

IMPERIAL TROOPS.

Towards the; ( close of . last year, ,a verygeneral discussion , was' carried on-withi reference .to the employment of Imperial troops.'!' , The policy of the- late. ; Ministry. 1 oni that subject was sufficiently explained by their measures. TKey-enlistedc recruits for the Armed Constabulary in this colony and in "Victoria; but they declined to make any application either to 'the Governors of, the Australian colonies' or to, .the Imperial Government, for the assistance of regular troops. , They, *did nothing in that direction beyond transmitting the resolution of the House of Representatives, , soliciting the retention of one regiment in the colony for a time. They had evidently resolved to carry. out Mr Weld's policy in its en- • tirety, thus rendering the selfs&liance scheme a permanent feature of bur administration. In the * Papers relative to Imperial Troops in New Zealand'— recently presented to Parliament — we have the official correspondence which passed between His Excellency and his advisers on this subject,, There is no difficulty in gathering from these .documents the opinions held by both parties alluded to. ■ The former expressed himself very decidely in favour of the employment of Imperial troops, and urged his advisers to concur with him in petitioniag for that assistance. Mr. Stafford, on the other hand, appears to have held distinctly opposite viewß. The spirit, if not the letter, of his remarks leads us to infer that considerable pressure would be required to extract from him any petition for Imperial assistance. His official Memoranda display a careful and precise adherence to the resolutions of the Legislature on the , question at issue j.fbut these resolutions appear to have served him as a convenient pretext, for his reluctance to look to England. The implied ' argument was to this effect, that the resolutions referred to the retention of a regiment on certain conditions, and not to the employment of .additional ; and that therefore he would not be justified in addressing any request to the Imperial Government far the, assistance sought for. This line of argument purposely excluded from view the .important fact that the face of , affairs in isi&. North Island had very much changed since the resolutions had. - been passed. A far greater emergency had presented itself, than was visible *t that time. , The massacre at Poverty Bay • had ;taken place. The rebellion had spread. over both Coasts s and there was every probability of our being, engaged in a struggle which our reaources would not ■ , enable us to bring to a successful issue. . It was never intended by the House of I£epre?entatire9 tliat the resolutions j^

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taken, up! 'the Aqq@l3j?jl ss^J^o^tlie! \sso.ployment/'of ofpolicy.v ,- ( .": ' *'•>* j\" , : ','V-"/ •;•„'♦*} ' Prpmpted'by a, memoriaUad^essejd, to him by Dr. FBAraasß'sTOgH 1 kv^mpxy^ other residents 'in ifcW'city of Wellington;' His Excellency formally sought the opinion of his advisers as to the expediency 1 oiPmaking application 'for one,.of the regiments serving in Australia.;, Mr Stafford, in reply, proceeded ,tq point out his objections' to this course. After calling in question His Excellency's statement that the leading political men of airpartieswere in favour of employing Imperial' troops^ and expressing" an opinion to the effect that the course advised would be protested against' by many such men, he assumed (l)thattlle troops would be of no use unless they could be transferred at once to the posts previoiily held by them in the Wailsato, at *Tauranga, 'at Wairpa in Hawkt*s Bay, and on the West poast ; (2) that if the Australian regiment were asked for, the, matter would be referred to the imperial Government, and thus a tedious delay would be incurred ; and (3) that if the petition were granted, the troops would be confined to barracks in some of the principal towns — posi-' tions in which they would be of no practical ' use. Such a reply was of course equivalent to a distinct refusal to adopt the course suggested by Dr Featherston ; and as we have shown, was based on mere assumptions. Undeterred by this view of the matter, His Excellency renewed the discussion shortly after, when he had occasion to forward to his advisers a series of resolutions'passed at a meeting of Justices of the Peace resident in Auckland. He prefaced his remarks by reminding Ministers of his opinion on the subject, and by stating his belief that the most effectual and by far the cheapest way to secure permanent peace and safety is to apply for 'an Imperial force of two regiments. He then recommended Ministers to concur with him in at once requesting the Imperial Government to instruct General Chute to leave the 18th regiment in the colony, and also to send over the regiments about to be removed from Australia. Mr Stafford again argued on assumptions. He stated that, as the Legislature had expressly prayed for the retention of the 18th regiment, and as the colony had fulfilled the conditions on which a regiment was allowed to remain, 'it might be fairly assumed that General Chute had already been instructed ' to the desired effect. The discussion was closed by a Memorandum from His Excellency, in which he reminded Mr Stafford that he had previously declined to accede to any formal conditions on which the single regiment then in New Zealand should be retained, and had also declined to advise that Imperial troops should be employed in the field. His Excellency added :— 'lt is possible that the Home Government may have taken Ministers at their word, and that General Chute may have received instructions accordingly. For it is certain that the Imperial authorities have no desii-e or intention to keep any of the Queen's forces in this colony, or to -employ them here in the field or otherwise, except with the consent and at the request 1 of the Colonial Ministry and the Legislature.' We do not agree with Mr Fox in his assertion that no one can read the despatches from the Secretary of State for the Colonies without seeing that we have been repeatedly asked to ask for Imperial troops. The tenor of the despatches is quite the other way. When ordering the removal of the 18th regiment, the Duke of Buckingham made some allusion to Mr Stafford's refusal to depart from the course consistently pursued for the last three years, that w, the self-reliant course ; and added < that the Govern- ; xnentand the Legislature of New Zealand might have ' withdrawn from the position taken up by Mr Stafford, and have sought, if they considered the emergency so great, to retain the services of a portion of Her Majesty troops while organising their own force, pa the conditions on which those troop

"^ wftS--; "ttll^tJttkoil'^f tDffi' GQXh- ', '^Huttf "r" r 'the '^''vi^mbe^ $ con-; 'ditionsi hj^J^tlbe^AJ^fil^^JS^ orderecl the T rembyar ■of \ troops iincler»Hhis erroneous , impression, »n)cl was'^naturally surprised; ',di the supposed .rlefusaLof, ,the • New I Zealand; .Govern*; merit* to accept the* conditions, referred to. ' His .language art this occasion affords rid ground <for such an\assertion as that made by _Mr Fox> ( Nor is there any passage in, Earl ; Granvillb's despatches, on which .such 'an, assertion could ;be ; founded.\ . Alluding to the massacre at Poverty Bay, his Lordship remarked that the .danger had appa-i rently been, overrated by His. Excellency, more . especially as your Ministry do not: forward any, request to retain. Imperial troops at the , expense of the Colonial' 'Treasury, but, have preferred,, and I think' very properly preferred, to send to < Victoria for recruits.' This is- certainly not • an offer to supply troops. ,, His Lordship, refers merely to the 18th regiment, which might be ' retained ' on the ful-. tilment of certain conditions which His Lordship believed to be,, unfulfilled. In reply to the memorial from the wiveis, mothers, and daughters of the Wanganui settlers, praying for.the assistance of Imperial.troops, His Lordship stated that she was unable to advise Her Majesty to give any directions with regard to that prayer. When, informed by His Excellency that the conditions on which Lord Carnarvon offered to leave a regiment in the Colony had been fulfilled, Earl Granville observed :: — * Her Majesty's Government would not in any case have been prepared to repeat Lord Carnarvon's offer.' The language adopted by two successive Secretaries ot State on this subject points in a very different direction from that described by Mr Fox. It was a question with them whether the regiment stationed in the colony' should' be, allowed to remain. They did not entertain the idea of despatching additional troops. Certainly no proposal to that effect was laid before them by Mr Stafford, at the time of which we write.